Thursday, November 27, 2014

Hello Thanksgiving. We aren't actually having our turkey until Saturday, so today we have just been hanging out.

Well, hanging is sort of subjective I guess, since I totally gutted my sewing room. And then worked on the Christmas tree some more.

I tried to take the turkey photos yesterday because right now calendars are free from Shutterfly. You can see Sammi was THRILLED about it.

She did not want to change her clothes.

She did NOT want to wear those feathers because they were not purple.

And no way was she going to smile.

So I just rolled with it, inserted a photo in the calendar (I had made it in advance so this was the last photo I needed) and clicked order.

At least I can walk in the sewing room again.

I will confess this though - I had an idea to print a picture to stick on my cabinet, so I was digging around the blog. Man, sometimes doing that is just depressing. The house always looks clean and uncluttered and peaceful on the blog. In life it always feels loud and chaotic and insane. And no matter how much junk I get rid of we are always swimming in a million tiny pieces of crap that the children accumulate and juice boxes and candy wrappers and just BLARGH. LOL

Anyway. Enough of that.

This year I am ever so thankful for my little shop that is chugging along and providing me just enough cash when I seem to just REALLY need it. (Obviously the kids and Dave and the house and blah blah too!)

Monday, November 24, 2014

Let's face it - the real purpose of the Christmas tree around my house is to add some sparkle to the endless gray days of winter.

It may not be winter yet, but endless gray days are here.

So while Sam was at school Grant and I started the EPIC project that is putting up the *First* Christmas tree in our house. (Sam has requested one in her room and one in Grant's room and I always do a green tree with our family ornaments too).

These two knuckleheads! When Sam saw the tree she said, "this tree smells so fresh!" Um, okay? LOL

Then she let Grant sit on her in the chair and said, "mommy, he is sitting on two butts! giggle giggle". Funny one, that girl.

I don't use this tree very often because it is shedding so much. She is my favorite old girl - a lovely champagne color instead of white and I am scared that in not too many years she will be bald. New trees do not have the same charm. (Although I still have SERIOUS regrets about not buying that champagne tree at target a few years ago.)

700 tiny lights later. I wish they still sold the white wire lights in 50 light strands, it could use another 50 near the top.

When I finished Sam was making Grant take her and dollie's photo in front of the tree.

"Its like a store in here now! The mall, the beautiful mall!"

This girl is a SERIOUS fashionista. And she is good at it already! I remember how frustrating it was when she was just over 1 and she INSISTED on dressing herself. Now its a source of wonder and amazement. Her sense of color and pattern. She can look at a fashion magazine and immediately point to the ones who are the worst dressed in those "who wore better" lists.

And this boy? OBSESSED with wires. I have no clue how these trees are going to fare since he insists on plugging and unplugging everything.

Now to get it screwed down so I can get the start of the ornaments off the counters!

Sunday, November 23, 2014

I fear that Flea Market Sundays might be dead for the year now. Flea Market season is long past, and despite hitting five thrifts this week (in an attempt to keep my online shops stocked, lest anyone think I am positively thrift store crazy) I have only a few little train houses to show for it.

They are sweet little cottages, aren't they? I bought them to sell but then, oh dear, I couldn't do it.

We might need a new Sunday theme for awhile, but my brain is just too dead to even come up with anything.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Since my enthusiasm for all things autumnal is quickly fading with this crazy weather, I thought I should show what I did get up before it turned bitterly cold.

The mantle this year. Silver pumpkins, seed garland made from those Hawaiian necklaces, glittered leaves, porcelain acorns and some crepe paper black eyed Susans I finally made from an old Martha Stewart kit.

Feathers and gold mercury beads.

The only Gurley candles I have.

Crepe paper flowers in a lovely faux bois vase.

Blurry! The kids are really in a mood this morning...

Plus a few die cuts and kid crafts on the other wall.

My wire tree with acorns, pumpkins, mushrooms, pine cones.

The rest of the die cuts and more kid crafts.

A lot of people are asking again (in life, on facebook, etc) where do I get the time to do any of this stuff?!?!

The honest, simple answer is that I make time. I take 30 minutes every morning to list things in the shop and blog. And then I try to take 1 hour every evening to make things. Sometimes I use that time to decorate a tree (or a wall), paint furniture or sew. We have dinner and then the kids are Dave's problem for an hour. Just about the time I am wrapping up it's time to start having baths and getting ready for bed, which is a 2 person job still. Sometimes the afternoons are quiet for an hour, and I do something then, but because of the RA I usually just use that as down time. I often will snooze for 15 minutes while Sammi lays down with me and Grant sleeps in his room. Or we watch princess movies. :-)

But really - in order to pull all of that off, we have a pretty rigid schedule. This hour is for housekeeping stuff, this hour for cooking, this hour for outside play, this hour for baths and stories, etc.

And of course, some days are just total chaos. Crying, spilling, hitting, needing, messing, chaos!

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Its been snowing here this week already. It snowed Thursday while we were going to KC, it snowed about an inch last night and it's snowing again today. It's not sticking very well (I think the temp must be hovering close to 32), but still, snow! already. In St Louis this is really, really unusual. We don't start getting snow really until January. It is also making me sick of the "autumn" decorations already and Thanksgiving is so darn far away still!

On to the flea market. I tried SO HARD to buy something other than Christmas. I am sworn off Christmas unless it's really unusual. In fact, I just cleaned out my Christmas bins and emptied two bins with stuff for the shop because I just have too much. But despite walking around the flea market at least 3 times there was really nothing to buy BUT Christmas! So I did what any rational junk girl will do - I bought Christmas.

Well, first I bought this huge piece of heavy vintage cotton duck fabric. It matches my rocker so well! I think in the spring we need new porch cushions, eh?

And then I gave into the Christmas. A paper mache Santa. (He is unusual, so I would have bought him anyway.)

More glass garland.

Very tiny glitter birds. Still on a mission to have a tree with nothing but these birds.

Pine cone critters. Let's be honest - I would have bought these anyway too.

And then I gave in to the siren call of ornaments. A slippery slope that is.

This year I am crushing on these decorated indents.

But really Sarah, another 3+ dozen ornaments?? LOL

These are unusual too. I have been trying to talk the guy down on the price of these for more than a year. I just gave in and bought three. He still has 5 more. I will probably give in and buy more.

This is an awkward photo, but I did not want to employ wet children to hold them. When I first saw these cones I thought immediately of German school cones, or Schultüte.

I have never seen them for Christmas before. They are marked made in Western Germany, but I don't think they are terribly old. 1980's maybe? All the Christmas dealers commented on them when they saw me carrying them around, so I was glad I bought them despite my waffling. (I really didn't want to buy something so big that I am not quite sure what I am going to do with it!)

I need to figure out a way to hang them up somewhere.

I need to go try and take photos of Christmas stuff for the shop. The kids are INSANE today so that should be F U N!